It's Five O'Clock Somewhere

RP Date: 2026-10-10

Location: The Last Chance

Participants: Lucian, Morgane

Summary

At the Last Chance Inn, Morgane and Lucian discuss the proposed human sacrifice, with Morgane expressing displeasure at learning that someone has nominated her as a candidate. Their conversation turns to the mysterious French journal and the possibility of escaping Grimwych through a portal, with Lucian questioning whether sacrifice truly freed the village's previous inhabitants.

This archive was published after approval by all listed participants.

Roleplay

Morgane is in yet another evening gown.  It's all that she wears in Grimwych, seemingly she's found a store of them.  This one's an emerald brocade with golden floral embroidery, an off the shoulder style, with a sweetheart neckline.  Her hair is glossy and dark, recently brushed to fullness.  It's giving black tie wedding, not haunted-ass village from hell.  In any event, her train trailing behind her, she's behind the wooden bar, trailing her fingertips along the bottles lined up along the wall until one slender finger identifies her drink of choice, a pastis, which she plucks from the shelf and begins to pour in a glass.  She adds water, making a tall cloudy drink that looks like diluted milk and smells like licorice.

Lucian plucks out a quiet tune, contemplative and reflective as he strolls into the inn. Guitar slung on his hip, guitar case strapped to his back, he truly gives the impression of a man ready for anything, so long as that anything can be solved with either a guitar or a guitar case. He smiles a few heartbeats later than he actually spots Morgane, making the decision to be airy and affable, and quickens the pace of his song to a friendly little tune as he closes the few steps over to the bar and places his hands on the bar top. "It is five o'clock somewhere, eh?" He looks at her choice of drink with a raised eyebrow and slips his flask of tequila from his pocket, unscrewing the cap and pouring a healthy portion into a glass.

Morgane lifts the glass to her mouth, sipping daintily as Lucian strolls inside the bar.  The pastis has a bitter licorice taste that she enjoys.  "Yes," she answers smoothly, for it was indeed five o'clock somewhere.  She puts the highball glass on the counter and slowly makes her way around the bar, her unnecessarily elegant dress swishing expensively behind her.  "We're trapped in this village, I don't think anyone should deny themselves," she says with a certain air.  She carefully sweeps the fabric of her dress under her and then delicately perches on a stool near him.  "I came here to socialize, so it's a good thing you showed up or I would have been drinking alone."  Her eyes carry amusement.  "How goes your very grim task?" she inquires airily, reaching for her pastis.  "Have you received many good suggestions?"

Lucian lifts his glass in the air toward hers, calling out, "¡Salud!" before taking a sip. He smiles and nods, head bobbing as he considers all things. "Very grim, but insightful. Did you not get my message from the post office?"

Morgane , at the mention of the letter that Lucian had posted her, in which he revealed that someone had put her name forward for sacrifice, smiles in the very patrician manner of a Woman Tolerating Things.  "Yes, I did," she answers, in such a poised manner that suggests she plainly doesn't give merit to the idea of herself as candidate for human sacrifice.  Lest there be any confusion, however, she says, "It was a little disappointing.  Anyway, the journal."  She had left a satchel of sorts on the bar, and she reaches for it now, easily finding the leather journal inside and handing it to Lucian.  She sips daintily at her pastis as he flips through the very small number of entries.  "I know it's not very ladylike of me to ask, but do you happen to know who sent the suggestion that it should be me?  I'm a bit put out about it, considering I've always been only trying to help."

Lucian smiles sadly and shakes his head, looking through the journal. "No, they are anonymous, and they are not alone in their opinion, whoever they are." He runs his finger along the dates of the entries, comparing something. "Right now the front runner is a lottery of some kind, followed by killing you, followed by killing the next person out of the lake." Lucian is fibbing about the exact order, but that is his prerogative as record keeper. He smiles again and looks over at Morgane, "So does this writing look different to your eyes than, say," he gestures to the sign naming the Last Chance, "That writing?"

Morgane thins her lips.  "Of course," she comments drily, and continues to sip from her pastis.  Her gaze flicks toward him as he ranks murdering her second among the options presented, but she says nothing yet.  At his question, she glances toward the sign for the bar, studying it.  "I don't really think so, but maybe, I don't know," she answers, turning back to him, "the way I read the journal, the writer probably left Grimwych after long, presumably after she and the others opened the portal.  I don't get the impression she had the opportunity to open a local bar during her short time here.  She seemed a bit reclusive.  I can empathize.  Trusting others can be dangerous."  She smiles darkly and studies Lucian.  She thinks about the people in the village who might have cause to write her name down.  Lilith and Spizzzo had voted no.  Hela had voted yes, but she and Morgane were recently in a prisoner's dilemma.  It was anyone's guess which of the three it might be.  Morgane is presently leaning toward Lilith,  (1) because she presumes Hela might need her help one day, and (2) because she knows she's beautiful and Spizzzo is a man.  (That really is the rationale.  Pretty privilege.)  A small pause has unspooled between them, and Morgane now breaks it with a pointed question:  "Are you expecting me to try to convince you that it shouldn't be me?"

Lucian blinks slowly as Morgane asks her final question, and smiles again. "Am I? No, I do not have expectations. And why should you convince me? I am just the... como se dice... the records keeper. I do not control what the people decide." He glances at the bar sign, "Now this, this is interesting to me. Most of the writing in town, it looks like this to my eyes. I would call this English, the language of Rory's people. Many hundreds of years ago, they did a genocide on the country north of mine, so I know this language very well." He smiles pleasantly and places his hand on his chest, "My people, they were done a genocide from the people of Spain, and so that is the language of my home. Ni modo." Then he gestures to the journal, "This is in French. I know maybe one word out of ten? They did their genocides farther north and east, so it is not as familiar."

Morgane cants her head and studies Lucian in an appraising manner.  As he gestures at the sign, she turns slightly to consider it anew, the heavy fabric of her dress rustling.  At length it becomes appropriate for her to stop looking at the sign, and she does, her attention returning in due course to Lucian.  "I apologize for asking," she says, in her genteel manner, "but I am wondering ... what relevance does genocide have to opening a magic portal at the stone circle?  Oh!" she doesn't give room for Lucian to answer, for she appears to have caught a thought here, "--You are raising that I am capable of reading this French.  Yes, why yes, I am.  I am capable of reading it.  It had never occurred to me that it was in another language, but you are absolutely right.  How odd.  Oh," her brow furrows as she continues her Oscar winning performance, "perhaps I am of your world then."  Her face lights up with understanding.  "I would like to know who I am," she reaches to gently lay her hand on his arm, "you have helped me a great deal, Lucian.  I am so grateful."

Lucian flinches back almost imperceptibly when Morgane reaches for his arm. He's losing the thread here, and he knows it. Is he the dark handsome stranger and she the damsel? The femme fatale? Why does he feel like the damsel? His light smile reestablishes itself and he nods, laying his hand atop Morgane's in an arm sandwich. "Well, we all are looking for answers, and a way home. What do you think about this portal, do you truly think the sacrifice was the salvation of your French writer?"

Morgane sees the flinch on Lucian's part but reads it for a frisson of shock that she'd touched him.  Again, the pretty privilege.  She allows him to rest his hand on hers.  They are having a decorous moment of mutual consolation, and soon she will have him in her teeth like a cat.  She mustn't rush such things, though.  He is far from singing from the same hymn sheet.  "Yes," she answers his question plainly.  She holds his gaze.  "The people who lived here, before us, have gone somewhere.  Such a sacrifice, the ultimate price, is an inconceivable thing to contemplate, but I have no other explanation for this place."  Her brow furrows just a little, as if his potential doubts pained her.  "Do you not see it the same way?"

Lucian shrugs his shoulders broadly, maintaining Morgane's eye contact and patting her arm. "I do not know from magic, I am only a trovador. I have my guitar, my boots, my case. But I go to many little towns." He looks around the inn as a microcosm of Grimwych, "Your journalist, she did not build this town. I do not see le pâtisserie. I do not see la panadería. I see The Last Chance." He stops to have another sip of his tequila, letting out a soft relaxed sigh of contentment. "So what brought her here was not stopped, it brought us too. And if the sacrifice let her free, where was the body? Someone stays when they are sacrificed, no?"

Morgane 's brows knit together in a deeper frown.  "You're right, of course," she admits, but the character she's playing has no answer for any of this.  She is but a lady of nebulous aristocratic origin, here alone and helpless.  She shakes her head in frustration, and drains the last of her pastis.  "I guess I'm just believing in whatever I can.  I wish we had more answers," she says breathlessly to Lucian, as if her heart were actually breaking.  She holds his gaze for a beat longer, a tension swelling in the moment, before sliding her hand free and easing herself carefully off the stool, fabric rustling.  "I am acting unladylike, I think," she says, as if she had caught herself.  She curtsies to him.  "I know you're an honorable man.  Thank you, I'm going to go now."

Lucian watches Morgane step away, stroking his chin, smiling, and raising his glass. "To your health, Morgane."